Good Vibrations
by Kilroy-M
Summary: Another nice trip into the woods. Really.
1. Bureaucratic Pathology

TITLE: Good Vibrations

AUTHOR: Kilroy M.

RATING: T. Adult language, but nothing horribly shocking. Some sexual tension, but nothing graphic. Allusions to drugs/alcohol, but nothing scandalous. I hear worse in school every day.

SPOILERS: Brief reference to "Darkness Falls" and "Detour," plus one line in Chapter 7 out of "Pilot," which probably doesn't even count as a spoiler anymore. (Does it make you depressed to think about how that episode is over 10 years old? It makes me depressed.)

KEYWORDS: MSR, UST.

CATEGORY: X-File; Mystery/Romance

SUMMARY: Another nice trip into the woods. Really.

DISCLAIMER: I don't get to make any money, so you don't get to sue for it. Those with further questions and/or objections should probably review the copyright laws, most specifically the parts referring to unlicensed use of copyrighted material for unprofitable humor- or entertainment-based purposes.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Since I never wrote back to any of the extremely kind and undoubtedly wonderful people who commented on my last series, and I feel guilty about it, I hereby dedicate Good Vibes to them. I hope they want it. Anyhow, I suppose this might as well be set in the fifth season, or thereabouts. It is less weird than Primal Fear, but only slightly. (Low angst levels!) If you want to tell me how you feel about that, go right ahead. :)

(Good Vibrations--Chapter One)

Bureaucratic Pathology, and other Unexplained Phenomena

DECEMBER, WASHINGTON D.C.

J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING -- ACCOUNTING OFFICES

A decrepit shoebox hit the desk with a heavy _thud_, musty dust particles trailing in the air behind it. The youngish intern who used the desk jolted back slightly in his seat, glancing up in surprise to see a smirking counterpart intern standing in front of it.

"What did you do that for?"

"Guess how old _that_ one is," said the other intern, smirk turning into a scowl.

The first intern squinted at the graying cardboard of the shoebox. "Um . . . five?" he hazarded, half joking.

The other man let out an exasperated breath, rolling his eyes up to stare at the ceiling. "Six," he said clearly.

"_Six!"_ the first yelped, jumping up out of his chair. "No freakin' _way!"_

"Way, man, _way_." The second shook his head in disgust and flipped open the shoebox's crumbling lid to display the yellowing slips of paper that stuffed the box full almost to bursting. "Will you just _look_ at this baby. . . ."

The first intern leaned over his desk, eyes wide. "I cannot freaking believe this. Six _years?_ Even for this place, that's obscene! That was -- what was that, two administrations ago!"

The second intern transferred his look of disgust to his partner. "Six _months_, dumbnuts."

"Oh." The first man subsided slightly. "But that's still way too long!" he rallied after a few seconds, feeling foolish.

"Well, yeah." The second one gave an indifferent shrug. "But -- I've heard rumors about this thing. It's the Moby Dick of expense claims, man. I've been searching, cleaning out the old boxes for a month and a half, and there she was at the bottom of the biggest, nastiest one – just looking up at me and smiling, I swear. I tell you, it was almost religious."

"I thought Moby Dick was a guy whale, not a girl whale."

"With metaphors, who the hell cares? With _whales_, who the hell cares?"

"Other whales?"

"Cut the crap." The second intern cleared his throat and crossed his arms. "The fact remains that now that this thing is unearthed, we need to go through the motions of reviewing it. Figure out what parts of it to pass on to our big bad boss and what parts to judiciously re-bury."

"That's not moral."

"Oh?" The second one pulled a receipt at random out of the shoebox and read it aloud: "A motel."

"What?"

"A motel."

"That's what I thought you said. I repeat: _What?"_

"A motel. That's what this joker thinks the FBI needs to pay for," the intern clarified.

The first intern gaped. "No. You mean a motel _room_. Or two."

"No, I mean an entire motel. . . . You see why we need to weed out the dangerous things before the boss sees them and blows an artery."

"Yes. Yes," said the first man nervously, and drew back slightly in his chair. "I think I see your point. Say, uh . . . who the _filed_ this expense report, anyway?"

The second one glanced at the side of the box. "Says here, 'X-Files.' " The two interns glanced at each other. "That might explain something," he muttered, and carefully placed the receipt back in the box. A little _too_ carefully--almost as if he expected it to bite him, or possibly to dissolve him from the hand up.

Even the Accounting interns -- read, "unpaid flunkies" -- heard stories. Mainly while eavesdropping in popular law-enforcement hangout bars, granted; but they still heard stories. And it would appear that the legend had just been confirmed, the Holy Grail been found. Except in this case it was more like the Arc of the Covenant, since the unlucky intern who first looked upon it was almost certainly doomed to an excruciating, horrible fate.

"Have fun," said the first intern brightly, picking up the papers he had been reviewing before the arrival of the overlarge shoebox.

It was the second man's turn to gape in incomprehension. "What?"

"I said: Have fun. As in, with _that_. Your job. Moby Dick. The she-whale."

"No. Don't do this to me, man, I really need your help." A note of panic crept into the second intern's voice.

"No freaking way," said the first intern flatly. "You found it. Hell, you were _looking _for it. That, to me, clearly demonstrates a want, or possibly _need_, to locate this travesty of an expense report. And that in turn implies that you were prepared to deal with the _consequences_ of finding it. Like being the proverbial shot messenger when it comes time to hand our work over to the boss -- it's just an occupational hazard, so to speak."

The second man shook his head, disbelieving. "You've been hanging around those Prosecution interns during lunch hour again, haven't you? I can't believe that you'd desert me! If ever I needed your help -- hell, the times I've bailed_ you _out-"

The first guy ran a hand through his hair. "Ummmm. . . ." He was not really a cruel person at heart, despite the time he spent hanging around in questionable company. He flicked a glance at the shoebox, which appeared to be glaring at him with a contained malevolence. Then at the doe eyes his co-worker was attempting to make. Sure, the sweet-and-innocent look was all a very obvious fake -- there was a reason some people entered accounting instead of acting -- but there was also a very real expression of apprehension behind it. That did it. The first intern's shoulders slumped. He surrendered. "Fine."

"Yes!" The second man punched a fist in the air. "I knew you'd come through!"

"Just let me finish this first," said the first intern even as he pushed his other papers aside. _What did I just do?_ he asked himself. _You just committed yourself to slogging through the most bizarre expense vouchers in history, that's what. Because you have no resistance whatsoever when it comes to people asking favors of you, even if they are horrible ones. And, possibly because of that, you're going to have to face your boss' almighty wrath even once you pare this mess down to something slightly more acceptable,_ he thought. _Oh, well. It's better than having to watch this guy make pathetic faces at me for the next month._

"I don't know how all this could have _happened_," he muttered, poking in resignation at the box as his colleague pulled up a chair to his desk. Several yellowed scraps of paper fell out, all bearing outrageous financial figures. The first intern blanched.

"That's something we'll never know," the other replied. "And I, for one, am actually kind of glad for that."

Some people, needless to say, are not so lucky. . . .

AUTHOR'S ENDNOTES

And thus the story of How Mulder & Scully Stuffed a Shoebox Full of Weird Receipts commences.


	2. Another Nice Trip

(Good Vibrations--Chapter Two)

Just Another Nice Trip. . . .

SIX MONTHS EARLIER

A HIGHWAY IN RURAL PENNSYLVANIA

She wasn't talking to him.

Sure, she knew it wasn't his fault they got the assignment. Sure, a few days or so had passed since they'd gotten the darn thing to begin with. And sure, she'd had a few hours on the highway to think over the whole situation so far, just in case she hadn't had long enough to consider things already. But she still wasn't talking to him.

Agent Fox Mulder glanced over in irritation at this fact and finally noticed that his partner was actually asleep, which might have had something to do with her not talking to him. His counterpart -- Agent Dana Scully -- had gone limp in the passenger seat, drooling lightly on the side of the car. He moved his attention back to the road in time to safely navigate the next turn of the highway.

_It's not my fault,_ he thought, conscious that he'd recently heard that line before in some movie or another. _It's not my fault._ Oh, yeah. "Star Wars." Spoken by Han Solo -- after bits and pieces of his ship start malfunctioning -- to the beautiful princess he's trying to help rescue. Well. At least that was one thing Mulder had over on Solo -- the car wasn't falling apart. Yet. And he had Scully instead of a feisty space princess with a cinnamon bun-like hairdo, which had to be good, except that Scully could also have a heck of a temper at times. Like the princess. Like now. _It's not my fault,_ he internally repeated, feeling much-maligned.

He stole another glance at her. Whoops, she was awake now. And looking at him. Was she also going to be talking to him?

"Good morning, Sunshine," said Mulder, and mentally kicked himself. _Well, Mulder, no one can ever say you tried to make things too easy for yourself_. It wasn't even morning anymore.

"Shut up," she said, which had to be better than not talking at all, and reached over to fiddle around with the radio tuner. Several barely-audible stations faded in and out of static, and then she turned the radio back off. Scully sank back into her seat, looking depressed.

A few moments passed. Fairly uncomfortable ones, at least for Mulder. _It's not my fault._

"I think I've made my feelings on this assignment clear to you by now," she finally said.

"Yes." _Queen of understatement_.

"I also realize that, at this point, there is nothing that either of us can do to remedy our being sent off on this wild-goose chase." Scully shifted in her seat, trying to get her skirt into a more comfortable position. Another few seconds elapsed. "And, uh . . . I know this is usually your line, but . . ." She watched Mulder's face brighten, possibly in anticipation of some parascientific or credulous revelation, and felt guilty that she was complaining over something like this. She considered stopping her line of thought, maybe going back to not talking to him, but gave up and went on anyway. ". . . _How_ is this an X-File, exactly?" she finished.

"Well, Scully, you're right. That _is_ my line, and whether you know it or not, it's also the one I asked Skinner the other day." Mulder sighed. "Well, now we're at least on the same page," he accidentally said aloud, then hoped she wouldn't take offense. "I mean, Skinner knows we're both opposed to going, but . . . who knows, maybe we'll actually discover something. . . ." His face darkened as his voice trailed off._ Sure, what are the chances of that?_ he wondered.

Scully rolled her eyes. "Right. Since, by all accounts, this 'missing person,' this FBI bureaucrat errant, has merely run off with his latest girlfriend and was last seen heading in this direction. _Especially_ since, _also_ by all accounts, we even have the name of the town he was supposed to be aiming for. What's wrong with calling the local police to keep an eye out for him, then leaving them to do the routine work on their own?"

"I guess Skinner thinks it's a sensitive matter. Well, ten to one we'll find him in some cheap motel, nursing a hangover and ready to come back home," said Mulder bitterly. "Which _is_ a waste of our time, but at least it won't be a waste of _much_ time. Considering we know his probable destination, we'll be . . . in and out of there. Chances are, we'll be back to work in no time."

Scully yawned. "Why he wanted to elope to western Pennsylvania is beyond me." She slouched down in her seat and idly watched the green scenery move by.

Mulder considered asking her ideal elopement destination, but decided that that might not be so diplomatic considering she'd only resumed speaking to him several minutes ago. "Maybe he's converting to Amish. But, seriously, our finding the guy will make Skinner happy, make the other bureaucrats happy, maybe make it easier for us to get serious work done in the future. There are worse assignments out there than a nice trip into the woods."

She threw him a glance. "You _do_ remember what happened the last few times we took a nice trip into the woods?"

"Sorry. Bad choice of words."

"We _are_ going to be in and out of there, aren't we, Mulder?" murmured Scully, lying her head back down against the back of her seat. "In and out," and within seconds, she had fallen back asleep. He listened to her steady breathing as the sedan continued along the western road.

Until she woke back up again upon reaching Yellow Barn, Pennsylvania. She and Mulder both kept a diligent lookout, but there were no yellow barns anywhere in sight. This was somewhat of a disappointment, since the only other things to look at were the greens and browns and yellows of the forests and fields they drove through and past. Which were nice, too, in a pastoral sort of way, but they also got boring after a while. Not even very much of a while, to tell you the truth. But into rural Pennsylvania they continued to drive, increasingly on the lookout for anything resembling a motel of some sort. Somewhere a philandering bureaucrat would hide.

"Yellow barn alert," said Scully, sitting upright for the first time in half an hour to point out the direction of the town's namesake.

Mulder jerked out of a reverie. "That's more of an . . . an off-white shade."

"It's been weathered."

"I'll say. It has two and a half walls."

"Still." She felt a faintly absurd sense of accomplishment at having located the yellow -- okay, almost off-white -- barn. "Oh."

"Yeah?"

"What's that sign say?"

They both squinted out at the road ahead. "What do you know. There's a motel coming up off the next exit. Which is a relief, since it's getting dark and I didn't think you really wanted to go camping under the stars with me tonight," said Mulder. _Maybe if it rains sleeping bags?_

Scully smiled. "You know I did."

_Whoa. _"Especially since we have no camping equipment," he ventured.

"It's June," she pointed out.

"Why, Scully, are you propositioning me?"

"You're about to miss the turn-off."

"_Are_ you -- whoops. Here we go."

"I told you so."

"So I guess that's a 'no.' "

"Look, they have neon technology in Yellow Barn," said Scully, pointing to a garish blinking signpost.

" 'Billy's Shangri-La #2,' " read out Mulder. "Well. Just the place we were looking for."

"I don't suppose this could also be the place our missing bureaucrat was looking for," started a hopeful Scully, and then she broke off as the agents' car turned off into the motel parking lot.

Somehow -- even more oddly than the initial fact of the existence of an urban-type trashy motel in rural Pennsylvania -- the parking lot was full of a wide assortment of unlikely-looking vehicles. Including a black-painted schoolbus with stenciled chrome flames racing down the side. A squadron of vintage 1960s VW buses, all re-done in psychedelic tones. A fleet of decrepit old lemons, one with the muffler several feet behind its hindmost flat tires. One dark gray Mercedes-Benz, a deep scarlet Jaguar, and a white stretch limousine.

And, now, a sedan with two confused FBI agents wondering if they had inadvertently stumbled upon an auto-body shop belonging to the Witness Protection Program.

Scully stepped uncertainly out of the now-parked car. "Mulder, this . . . this is . . . certainly strange," she finished, still fishing for better adjectives.

"I know," Mulder said, glancing around. "Usually you only get variety like this at UFO conventions." Slowly, oh-so-dangerously, Scully's head turned forty-five degrees on her neck to regard Mulder. "No, no, I swear I know nothing about it," he continued, holding out his hands palms-front to convey innocence. "It wasn't in my newsletter."

Scully rolled her eyes and turned back to regard the pink-painted motel. "So you think this is an impromptu thing, or what?"

"Well, it could turn out to be interesting, and who knows -- with such a wide range of people, maybe one of them's seen Agent Lowell." Mulder opened the car trunk.

"Maybe one of them _is_ Agent Lowell."

"Here you go." Mulder handed her her bag.

"Thanks. So, shall we check in to this lovely -- oh. Mulder, would you look at that . . ." Scully pointed to a field behind the motel. A large, colorful tent had been set up in the middle of it, and there appeared to be a man meditating underneath it. Near the man were several other people, who from a distance appeared to be dressed in colorful, flowing clothes and smoking suspicious-looking objects.

"New Agers?" ventured Mulder.

"Whatever. We don't have to talk to them right away." The agents headed towards the motel, baggage in hand.

"You're in luck--one room left!"

Scully closed her eyes._ Not again._ _This joke of an investigation was doomed from the start. The last thing I need at this point is to end up trying to figure out which side of the bed to sleep on, hoping I won't jump Mulder in my sleep-_

"It's a double, though," continued the receptionist. "Hope you don't mind."

"That's fine," chorused both agents at once, then glanced suspiciously at one another. _What was that supposed to mean?_ each wondered, on the lookout for a tacit snub.

The receptionist shrugged. _These guys are a little weird_, she thought. "Right. Well, anyhow, how many nights do you want?"

"Well . . ." Mulder stalled, looking out the lobby windows at the parking lot. There was really no way to tell how long it would take to find Lowell and convince him to return to society before an aggravated Skinner sent an assassination squad out instead of just a few disgruntled X-Files agents. Still, he didn't want to overbook, end up buying more nights than they really needed. Still yet, he _really_ didn't want to underestimate their stay and end up finding out just how much Agent Scully really did, or didn't, want to camp out under the wide blue yonder with him. Losing their room to whatever bunch of people had invaded the parking lot was probably unlikely to thrill her, especially seeing as how they were currently sans sleeping bags.

"Do you expect many more people coming in for this, uh, convention?" asked Scully, evidently thinking along similar lines.

The receptionist shrugged. "I . . . I really couldn't tell you much about this convention thing," she confessed, looking a little nervous. She rolled her office chair back a few inches. "I don't think Uncle Billy really . . . look, how about you just book a few days if you don't know how long you're going to be staying here," she offered, "and if we get more people coming in who want your room after that, I'll ask you first before giving it to them."

"That would be helpful," said Mulder brightly, resolving to seek out Grandfather Billy and interrogate him about the reason behind the tent, the people, and the impromptu convention. The receptionist handed a grubby set of keys across the Formica desk, and Scully accepted them as Mulder took a receipt for reimbursement purposes.

The receptionist, a rising senior in her high school, looked after the departing agents with a slightly worried expression on her face. She swiveled around in her chair, observed the smokers in the field, and made a face. _I don't like this too much,_ she thought, and turned back around. _Still, I guess it's good for business. _She shuddered slightly, biting her lower lip. _So why do I feel so weird about it?_


	3. Hotel Pennsylvania

(Good Vibrations -- Chapter Three)

Welcome to the Hotel Pennsylvania

8:05 P.M.

MOTEL ROOM #204 -- BILLY'S SHANGRI-LA #2

YELLOW BARN, PENNSYLVANIA

Scully had seen worse, as far as motel rooms went. _Far_ worse. Probably the worst she could currently remember was that time in North Dakota when the roof partially caved in under the weight of snow. That was also the motel that had had both suspicious stains _and_ fleas in its bedsheets; the motel that had had only one bed in its last free (closet-sized) room. Of course, at least with that particular motel room, she hadn't had to deal with sharing that particular stained and bug-ridden mattress with Mulder. Because Scully had been sick that night with food poisoning, and spent most of the night feeling nauseous in the bathroom. Until the roof had halfway fallen in, at least. Then they spent the rest of the night in the rental car. Still, that didn't mean that "Billy's Shangri-La #2" was exactly the new Hilton, either.

_Well, Dana, there are probably better ways to start off an investigation than spending all your time thinking about the Seven Circles of Motel Hell,_ she thought, making a conscious effort to transcend her bad mood. _In and out. Just like Mulder said. We'll be in and out of here. It could be a heck of a lot worse. Judging from the pointlessness of this case, it probably should be._

At least the room had two beds, just like the receptionist had claimed it did. Sure, they were very small beds, and also very saggy ones, but since Scully's cot didn't collapse when she dumped her suitcase on top of it, they would probably last the night.

"How's the bathroom look?" she called out to her partner as she unzipped her bag.

"Decent," came his voice from around the corner. "Shower curtain's got mildew on it, though." Mulder decided not to tell her about the (unused) packet of condoms he had found discarded on the slightly sticky tile floor, opting instead to hide it in the very back of the cabinet underneath the sink. It was probably irrelevant to the investigation.

Scully carefully laid out her extra clothes in the top drawer of their room's bureau. "So you _definitely_ didn't hear anything about, ah, UFO-related events around here?"

"No. And I wouldn't know about New Age conventions unless they overlapped with UFO sightings, and I haven't heard of any of _that _around here, so I don't know anything about it. Maybe this Billy person knows what's going on." Mulder re-emerged from the bathroom, trying to look innocent. _I haven't been picking contraceptives off the floor. No, not me._

Scully glanced out the window, shutting the bureau drawer. "Think we have time to ask around before they all head in for the night?"

"We can at least try to get our bearings," Mulder agreed, tossing his suitcase off his bed and onto the floor, then flopping down in its place. "Oh! Jeez, I think a spring just went in my back." _When was the last time I got a tetanus shot again?_ He closed his eyes. _Ignorance is bliss._

"Tell you what, Mulder -- you recuperate, order takeout or something, and I'll go ask around outside," said Scully, brushing her hair back from her face and wondering if it would be appropriate to ditch her suit jacket in the course of a federal investigation. Sure, she might have to talk to some suspects on the disappearance--more likely, elopement--of Agent Lowell, but the temperature seemed to be rising.

"Aren't you tired?"

"I slept most of the way here, remember?"

"Yeah." Mulder yawned. Several broken springs were poking into his back, and his feet kind of hung off the end of the bed, but it wasn't so bad overall. He reached out with one hand, waved it around uselessly for a few seconds, and finally caught hold of the regional phone directory that had been helpfully left on the bedside table between the room's two beds. Mulder flipped through it, trying to find takeout listings for Yellow Barn. "Here's a likely one," he said, looking around the corner of the pages to watch Scully finally give up and rip off her jacket, flinging it down onto her bed. _Be still my heart_. "Charley's House of Authentic Chop Suey."

"Thank you. But no thank you."

"C'mon, Scully, the federal government would pay for it."

"Exactly." Scully sat down on the edge of her bed and began tying back her hair. "And so would my small intestine."

"If you insist."

"Look, just please try to find somewhere that _hasn't_ been indicted for gross public health violations in the last five years."

"You don't know Charley's had trouble with the law."

"Never trust any food establishment that includes 'House of-' as part of its name."

"Not even the International House of Pancakes? And I thought you were open-minded."

"Actually, I've never been there," said Scully, wondering if it would be very indecorous to take off her pantyhose in front of her partner. Even overheated as she was, it was probably a bad idea, she considered. She sighed and stretched out her legs. "Besides, any place that feels such a need to over-emphasize the authenticity of its cuisine is probably trying a little too hard to prove something, don't you think?"

"Huh." Mulder tossed the phone book to the side and picked up his cell phone, dialing a takeout number apparently from memory.

"Show-off," murmured Scully affectionately, and left to go look for leads.

The first thing Scully noticed in the hallway was the man standing on his head. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. The first thing Scully noticed in the hallway was the noise the man standing on his head was making, which was what caused her to turn and notice him.

She blinked. Yes, he was definitely still there: A middle-aged Caucasian man, blood rushing into his face, was a few meters down the hallway--standing on his head, supporting himself with his arms and emitting some sort of rhythmic humming or droning noise. Although decidedly confused and, in general, freaked out by this development, Scully retained the presence of mind to mentally compare the man's reddened face with the pictures she had seen of Lowell. No, definitely not the same guy. _Thank goodness. If this is the state he's fallen into, I don't think Skinner would really want him back after all,_ Scully thought, nervously edging away from that end of the corridor, thanking Providence that there were staircases on both sides of the hallway so that she would not have to pass by the humming man.

Her left shoe scuffed slightly on the carpet and the man let out a shout of surprise, tipping over as his eyes flew open.

"Agh!" _Thump._

Scully rushed over as the man hit the carpet at a painful-looking angle. "Sir! Sir, are you all right?" she called out shakily, hoping that he hadn't ingested anything mood-altering that would affect his reaction to her. _Please don't let him attack me._

The man scrambled to his feet, blushing slightly but otherwise fairly composed. "Oh, I'm fine -- I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't think anyone was coming this way-"

"What . . . what are you doing?" she asked carefully, keeping her distance from the man as he dusted off his suit jacket. _He doesn't look crazy. . . ._

The man brightened up. "Oh, well, I was just on my way to get some ice when I realized that the All was in Perfect Harmony and this would be _the_ perfect place for me to tune in. I just couldn't help it."

_This is why I am not a psychologist. _Scully just stared, unsure whether it would be best to attempt (1) to continue the conversation, (2) to back away, or (3) to run.

Oblivious to her unease, the man continued on his own. "But I guess I just didn't stop to think that I might be in anyone's way. Most people are tuning in outside or in their own rooms, but not moving around between them." He shrugged and turned around, most likely resuming his search for the ice machine.

Curiosity overcame caution. "Uh, sir," began Scully, hesitant, "you mentioned, ah, 'tuning in'? What exactly do you -- ?" _Surely these people aren't picking up radio stations' frequencies with their heads? Upside down?_

The suited man turned around again, surprise written on his face. "What? You mean you don't know?"

Scully's hands twitched slightly at her sides. _Obviously something else is going on here besides the disappearance of a lovestruck FBI agent. Something bizarre. We would end up in the middle of it. _"No. No, I guess I don't," she said levelly.

The man laughed, then stopped when he saw her blank expression become just a fraction icier. He coughed. "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were joking."

She looked at him.

He bit his lip. "Okay . . . well, uh . . . I guess you noticed there were a lot of people around, right?"

"Yes." _Or, at least, their vehicles. And their tent. It would be hard not to._

"Well -- it's not like any of us know each other," the man continued, beginning to look more at ease. "We just all felt it at the same time -- knew that this was the place we should be -- and spontaneously congregated. To become part of the Oneness," he added in contentment.

A cold feeling of dread settled in Scully's stomach. _Please do not let this be a cult. Please do not let Agent Lowell have run out of the FBI and into a cult._

"It was like -- I just woke up in the middle of the night, and -- haven't you ever had one of those things where you just _know_, all of a sudden?"

"Ah . . . that's, that's very vague. . . ."

"Yeah, sorry . . . my degree is in accounting, not semantics . . . anyhow, we all got this feeling that there was something really special going on here. The vibrations."

"The vibrations," Scully repeated. Wondering if this man had misplaced his medication, or possibly ingested someone else's.

The accountant nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, we could all feel 'em. They transcended county and state lines to reach the conscious minds of all of us, and we knew that this was where they originated. The vibrations, that is."

Scully stared.

"They're _good_ vibrations, though," the man offered, in what was probably meant as a clarifying gesture. "I don't think we have anything to fear."

"That's . . . good to know." _Time to get out of here._ "Well, I'm sure you've been very, ah, helpful, but I have to . . . I have to go and talk to some people."

"Oh, sure. Right," said the man happily, and wandered off in the other direction. Scully stared after him for a moment, understanding less than she had before their encounter.

_Maybe he's an anomaly,_ she thought hopefully, and went off to find out if that were the case.

MOTEL ROOM #204 -- 9:10 P.M.

The motel room door closed with a very deliberate _click_.

Mulder glanced up from his bed to see Scully leaning against the doorjamb, staring at the windows on the opposite wall. She looked slightly unsteady on her feet, and was wearing the kind of facial expression normally reserved for his more improbable theories. _Uh-oh._ "I saved you some dinner," he said, sitting up in bed and gesturing towards the half-empty pizza delivery box that sat on the room's rickety desk.

"Thank you," she said, coming back to reality, and kicked off her shoes where she stood. About three inches shorter, Scully padded across the motel room carpet, making a beeline for the food. She made a small unhappy noise as she glanced at her watch, then gave up on evaluating the relative worth of the time she had spent. He watched her tiredly haul the box over to her bed, where she proceeded to sit, cross-legged, and attack her dinner with an exhausted single-mindedness. Deciding it would be more tactful to wait for her to finish before asking what had happened, he lay back down.

Eventually, Scully pushed the box away and fell back against her bed. She sighed. "Mulderrr. . . ."

"Yeah?"

"These people are completely nuts," she murmured, conscious that the food and the temperature of the motel room were working together to make her sleepy. _ "Allll_ of them. . . ." She closed her eyes, trying to block out the pervasive weirdness.

"Oh, yeah?"

Scully was silent for another moment. "Good vibrations," she finally said.

"No, sorry, I checked but there's no Magic Fingers in this room."

"What?" Scully rolled her head slightly to the right to regard Mulder in confusion. "What Magic . . . oh, no, not that . . . I mean it's why the people are here."

Mulder wrapped his mind around this. "They're here for the atmosphere?"

"I don't know," Scully responded wearily. "But it's what any single one of them will say if you ask why they're here. 'The good vibrations.' "

"What good vibrations?"

"I don't know, Mulder. I did ask them that, Mulder. If you want to try getting a coherent statement out of one of them, you are going to have to do it yourself, Mulder," she snapped, sounding more annoyed than she meant to. "Sorry. But it's true," she added.

"Did you find Billy?"

Scully let out a long sigh. "No. Not that I did not look. I also looked for Lowell -- who is, after all, the only reason we are stuck here to begin with -- and there's no one here who's ever heard of him. Or has seen anyone like him."

"Do they know who we are?"

"Frankly, Mulder, I'm not sure some of those people are aware who _they_ are."

"Thad bad, huh?" Mulder yawned and closed his eyes, trying to find a way to stretch out his legs without making his feet hang over the edge of the too-short cot.

"I _think_ they're nonviolent, but the only way to find out for sure would be to get in a fight with one, and that might not be an excellent idea," Scully said, and rolled out of her bed with some effort. "Oh . . . I have to change clothes or I'm going to fall asleep in these. I don't know about you, but I vote for our going to bed now and picking this up again tomorrow morning."

"Sure," Mulder said, watching her pull her nightclothes -- a medium-length plain white nightgown, it looked like -- out of her side of the bureau, remembering that he had forgotten to unpack. While she shuffled sleepily into the bathroom, he forced himself out of his bed. He got halfway unpacked before realizing that he really, really just wanted to sleep. Mulder made it out of his clothes and into a pair of his old sweatpants before collapsing back into his cot.

Meanwhile, the nightgown-clad Scully was in search of a paper cup with which to drink some water when she encountered an unopened packet of condoms way in the back of the cabinet underneath the sink. Blushing, she carefully hid the offending discovery behind a few more rolls of toilet paper. No need to tell Mulder. It was probably irrelevant to the investigation. She settled for drinking tap water out of her cupped hands, then returned to the bedroom, where she turned off the light and gratefully sank into her bed.


	4. Scully's Dream

(Good Vibrations -- Chapter Four)

Scully's Dream

When she dreamt she dreamt that she walked through the motel hallways until they turned into the halls of her partner's darkened apartment building. Without knowing how, she found herself on the other side of the door numbered 42, silently moving through the detritus of Mulder's life. Scully's fingertips brushed the edges of a bookcase as she vaguely noted the authors within -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy Sayers, Shakespeare, Douglas Adams, Robert Browning, Connie Willis . . . unlike the others, his science fiction books looked as if they had not been disturbed for some time. The effects of a life grown stranger than fiction. She rotated in the middle of his living room, backlit by the blueish glow of his muted television set. _Where is he?_

Scully drifted through the rooms; passed through a few walls. Halted when something tickled the back of her neck. A breeze? When she turned she saw nothing, but felt the slight touch of cool air on her face this time. Stepped forwards to follow it.

She did not feel the pile of the rug against her feet as she moved back towards the way she had entered his rooms. But now the door was gone, in its place a wide-open window with curtains blowing into the room in response to the push of the wind. And she, nightgown fluttering, moved towards the window, feeling a detached elation at having finally discovered it.

Upon climbing through the window, Scully found herself standing outside, bare feet flat on the ground. The surrounding woods looked like those near the motel, she thought, and began walking along the dirt path. A strange anticipation began to quicken the blood in her veins, and Scully found herself gradually walking more swiftly until the point at which she found herself skimming along the pathway in an easy run.

And then she found herself in the middle of a clearing. She stopped. Turned around; checked to see if anyone had followed her. When she returned her gaze to the clearing, he was standing there in front of her, holding something in his arms.

"Mulder," she said as he moved a few steps forwards slowly and stopped. A smile began to transform her mouth. His eyes were shining.

_Since the first time I stood there with you, watching lights dance in the sky, I knew I was really in for something, but how could I expect to find-_

He was one step away. One step would bring her there. The night air was heady in her lungs as she reached out her arms and shifted her weight, moving one foot forwards-

and as the baby in her partner's arms turned its tiny face to look at her, Scully realized that there was nothing beneath her feet-

and she found herself dropping like a stone into a widening abyss as Mulder and the child faded away into the night.

When she woke she woke sitting upright in bed, sheets tangled around her legs and damp chest heaving. Scully's gaze darted around the darkened motel room; she heard her own rasping breaths echo off the walls. Mulder was asleep on his side, facing her. Seeing this, her breathing evened out for a moment until the feeling of falling returned in her chest and she realized what she needed to do. She found herself scrambling out of bed, kicking the clinging sheets away.

When _he_ woke he woke to the sound of the motel fire alarms shrieking and Scully running back in from the hallway through the open motel room door, her white nightgown glowing like a beacon under the red emergency lights. As he sat up, fighting his way back to lucidity, she flung his coat at him and screamed:

"Take what you need to, we're getting out of here!"

"What!"

(Maybe this was a dream, he thought -- this was too weird to be anything but-)

"I said we have to leave! _Now!"_ yelled Scully over the wail of the hallway fire alarms as she grabbed her coat off a chair and snatched her laptop off the bureau. They heard people begin to move through the motel hallways, filing towards the exits in confused accordance with fire evacuation laws.

He was out of bed, stumbling over his own feet and hitting his knee on the bed frame. "Is there a fire?"

"No," she answered tersely, and spun around to face him.

"What-"

She launched herself at Mulder, trying to convey with her urgent body what she could not with words. As her feet left the floor, his arms automatically closed around her body, crushing his coat between them, and his mouth began to respond to hers as a look of wonderment stole across his face in the darkness. Just as things were starting to get really promising from his still-sleepy body's point of view, she broke away from him, turned back to grab him by the hand, and hauled him out of the room.

The other motel residents were gone from the hallway; Mulder could see the last of them filing down the stairs. He ran after Scully as she dashed down to the other end of the hallway, checking to make sure that everyone was gone from their rooms. Upon finding that everyone else had indeed evacuated, Mulder and Scully ran down the nearest flight of stairs and escaped out into the night.

Everyone else was standing a few feet back from the building, staring at it in half-conscious confusion -- which was no good, thought the desperate Scully.

"Everybody get back!" she yelled, waving her arms and trying to herd the others further away from the motel.

"What's going on?" demanded an older man, possibly the motel owner, as he shoved his way to the front of the crowd. "Did you have something to do with-"

Without really understanding why, Mulder intuitively responded to Scully's distress, pulling his ID from the coat slung over his shoulder and asking the crowd, as calmly as he could under the circumstances, to please move towards the trees edging the forest on the other side of the parking lot. Upon hearing "FBI," a nearly palpable wave of surprise and fear rippled through the motel residents, and they began to move as one through the darkness towards the tree line.

It was slightly cooler outside the motel than in, even though it was becoming more and more apparent by the minute that there was no fire inside. Once at the fringe of the woods, the others moved away from Mulder and Scully, staring alternately at the darkened motel and at the agents. Scully stood rigidly, round eyes staring out in front of her like a deer caught in car headlights. In contrast, Mulder's eyes stayed unwaveringly on his partner as he tried to decipher what had just happened.

The crowd of civilians was just beginning to shift on its collective feet and think about going inside again, defying whatever the two obviously delusional government agents had been yelling about, when they felt it -- a rippling in the ground. Muttered conversations came to an abrupt halt as the ground twisted. After a second, the movement stopped. Scully's head jerked up to face Mulder, eyes still wide.

"Did you-" she started.

"Yeah, I-"

And then it happened again -- stronger this time. People moved further back into the trees as the earth began to shudder and rumble. Mulder and Scully hit the ground.

Barely visible at first in the darkness, a crack opened up near the highway turnoff to the motel. It evenly split the road to the motel in half as it progressed, widening as it moved inexorably onwards. For one silent moment, the crack stopped right in front of the neon sign--and then it appeared on the other side of the motel, and the ground in between moved apart to accommodate it. With a deep sound like thunder, a chasm opened up underneath the bulk of Billy's Shangri-La #2.

And then the motel fell in.

And then the open ground slammed shut again behind it.

And then it was quiet.


	5. Aftershocks

(Good Vibrations -- Chapter Five)

Aftershocks

12:05 A.M.

YELLOW BARN, PENNSYLVANIA

One would think that the rest of the night would have to be anticlimactic following an event such as the spontaneous disappearance of an entire motel into the ground. However -- true to form -- Mulder and Scully had no such luck.

Were life a television program, there would have been a neat fade-out into black after the ground closed up after the motel, then a cut after the commercial break back to the next day, leaving viewers to skip over inconvenient facts like what happened next and how the incident got sorted out. As it was, the two federal agents were definitely still clinging onto the groundcover as the aftershocks of the freak earthquake dissipated, staring dumbly at the space where Billy's Shangri-La #2 had stood several moments before. After about a minute of mental processing and re-processing -- _did that just happen? Yes, the motel's definitely gone . . . did that really just happen? _-- they slowly turned their heads to regard one another in mutual confusion.

"Scully?" said Mulder very carefully, and got a series of stuttery breaths from his partner in reply. She blinked twice in rapid succession and glanced upwards. He followed her line of vision.

The others from the motel were standing in a circle around them.

The two federal agents got to their feet, trying to retain command of what dignity and self-respect they could while wearing only a nightgown and a pair of sweatpants, respectively. Scully also had on a distinctly shell-shocked expression, whereas Mulder looked wary, halfway as if he expected the sky to fall in on them next, or the locals to turn hostile and start taking potshots at them.

"What in hell's name did you just do?" demanded the same man who had confronted them outside the motel. He was almost definitely Billy, Mulder decided, cautiously bending down to pick his coat up off the ground where he had dropped it, trying to surreptitiously feel around in its pockets for his gun.

"With all due respect, sir, I believe we just saved your sorry ass from certain death," said Scully coolly, a faraway look in her eyes. Standing back up, Mulder shot her a _please be careful_ look.

Billy pointed with a shaking finger towards the notably motel-free field. "My motel. . . ."

"Is gone?" supplied Mulder helpfully. Then wished he hadn't, as his gun also appeared to be missing in action.

Scully coughed discreetly into her hand and tried to regain her composure. "Ah . . . is this town on top of a fault line, by any chance?" _It has to be, doesn't it?_

"No! It's not!" hollered Billy. "What did you _do!"_

"Sir, if you're insinuating that _we_ had something to do with a natural geological process-"

"It's _not_ natural! Yellow Barn has never, _ever_ had an earthquake before, and-" Billy broke off, seething. He ground his teeth, staring at the partners. "You're FBI, you said?" he continued in a dangerous tone.

Scully fished around in her own coat pocket for her badge.

"I don't want to _see_ it," snapped Billy. "I just want to know what the hell the government has to do with destroying honest citizens' welfares!"

"Hey," broke in the accountant Scully had met in the hallway earlier that night, stepping forwards. He was quite taken with her nightgown. "Mr. Ackroyd, I don't think anyone can be held accountable for the mystic workings of Nature!" There was a murmur of agreement from the predominantly New Age crowd that surrounded them.

Billy gave an unhappy laugh. "Yeah, well . . . I'm surprised _you're_ saying that."

"What d'you mean?" The accountant bristled.

"Weren't you the one who said you saw military people hanging around here just the other day?" demanded the motel owner.

Mulder and Scully exchanged a glance.

"Up to no good, you said they were!" continued Billy, triumphant.

The accountant cringed. "I didn't _know_ what they were doing, I just said it was strange that they were here! And, uh, they were _military_, right? These guys are FBI!"

"Same difference," called out a young woman from the crowd, looking exceptionally displeased to have been dragged out into the woods at the current ungodly hour. "They're all government. Obviously they're all in it together!"

Scully, who had self-consciously put on her coat, held out her hands placatingly. "I assure you, there was no way we could have had prior knowledge that-" She broke off suddenly, feeling dizzy. _Did I? -- what-_

The crowd began to murmur ominously.

"Obviously you _did_ know what was going on," snapped Billy. "Charlotte here says she saw you messing with the smoke detectors right before the alarms went off."

The receptionist, his granddaughter, shrugged and looked as if she wanted to disappear. The motel evacuees' mutterings grew louder, and the circle began to press gradually inwards. Both agents could feel the situation slipping even further out of their control.

"I'm gonna get the government to pay me back for the loss of my motel," yelled Billy.

"I left all my good clothes in there!"

"And my Tarot cards. . . ."

"My stuff was in there, too-"

"My wallet!"

Mulder shook his head, furious. "What the hell is _wrong_ with you?" he yelled, flinging out his arms and silencing the crowd. "She just saved your lives, and you're arguing about _why_ she did it? Isn't it more than enough that you all got out safely!"

There was a moment of quietness.

"You want to know why the motel is gone? Good! So do I! _I_ have _no fucking idea_ why the motel is gone, either! If you find out, that's great!" he continued in defiance, voice echoing through the woods. "But for God's sake, don't blame it on _us!_ All we're looking for -- the only thing we're here to find is a man named Joseph Lowell. Does _anyone_ here know where he is?" Mulder stopped, breathing heavily.

The group of people rustled. After a few seconds of silence, Mulder dropped his arms. "Thank you. That is _all_ we wanted to know." He felt drained. Scully's small right hand was suddenly curled in and around his left one.

"I think it's important that we figure out how to stay safe now that we're out here," offered the accountant. "I mean . . . I'm from Chicago. I have no idea what lives in the woods, but what if it attacks us?"

Mulder saw Scully's eyes roll up to meet his, her lips silently framing the words "moth men" and cracking into a weary half-grin. He squeezed her hand.

"I'm not leaving here," declared a teenaged girl from the crowd. "I think something important is happening here, and I don't want to go until I find out what it is!" She planted her hands on her hips. The other New Agers shifted in agreement. "All right, where's the nearest 24-hour store? Isn't there anyplace we can get supplies or something?" she demanded.

"About a mile down the road," offered a sullen Billy, sensing that he was outnumbered and would probably not get the chance to lynch any FBI agents that night.

The girl tossed her hair. "Right, well, that's where _I'm_ going. I'm sure I can find a tent and some clothes there."

"Some of us don't have _wallets_ anymore," called out an aggrieved evacuee.

"We are as One in the Union of the Good Vibrations," said the placid accountant. "I'm sure that those of us with money will pitch in to help out the less fortunate."

Which is all very well and good for a spirit of _camaraderie_, but a mile is actually sort of a long way to walk along a rural highway in the dark when you're not wearing any shoes.

2:36 A.M.

THE FIELD NEXT TO WHERE "SHANGRI-LA #2" USED TO BE

"What confuses me is why _we_ get to keep all their receipts."

Under the cover of their new "tent" -- several sheets tied together and propped up with sticks -- Scully rolled over in her new sleeping bag to regard Mulder. "Huh?"

Mulder gestured vaguely towards the corner in which a haphazard pile of paper stood. "That. There. Why." He yawned. "Wanna make a campfire?"

"I think they expect us to bring them back to the Bureau." Scully curled up, her hair spreading out on top of her new lumpy pillow. "Well. The government, anyway."

Mulder snorted gently. The tinny sound of a small portable radio drifted through the pre-dawn air and found its way into the agents' crude tent. Evidently, some of the motel's evictees had found some items in the local store to be more essential than the more traditional types of camping equipment. "Fat chance," he muttered. The two lapsed into a comfortable, companionable silence. Scully's eyelids began to droop down. She fought halfheartedly to keep her eyes open, watching the gentle rise and fall of her partner's chest, but soon found them shut anyway. Judy Garland's wistful recorded voice resonated in the background. And what was that other noise? -- sort of a quiet, off-key buzzing-

Scully's eyes re-opened slowly. "Mulder . . . ?"

"That's where you'll fi-ind mee. . . ."

Yes, he was definitely singing along. Although it wasn't really all _that_ funny, Scully helplessly dissolved into a fit of giggles, burying her face in her pillow. In between paroxysms, she turned her face to glance back to her right, and saw him grinning at her. Scully hid her face again, trying ineffectively to hide her amusement. As the weight of the night caught up with her, she felt her eyes leaking hot tears in time with her laughs. Mulder's arm fell over and around her shoulders and they moved closer, tension ebbing away under the mutual force of exhaustion as they sank and collapsed into one another. Within seconds, the entwined pair were fast asleep.

When he dreamt he dreamt of her lips at midnight.

AUTHOR'S ENDNOTES

All right, thanks are in order for two very nice and undoubtedly discerning people named, respectively, Damandabear 2 and Blue Twilight. They reviewed and it made me happy. What more can I say? Check out their accounts, they've obviously got good taste.

So, I think the message here is clear – write me a note and get thanked in the Endnotes. Free publicity all around. What could be bad about that?

Gosh, I'm shameless.


	6. Bad Vibes?

(Good Vibrations -- Chapter Six)

Bad Vibes?

10:13 A.M.

THE FIELD NEXT TO WHERE "SHANGRI-LA #2" USED TO BE

YELLOW BARN, PENNSYLVANIA

_She's right -- they're all nuts._ Mulder squashed this uncharitable thought as he moved along to question the next passerby.

Upon waking up an hour or so earlier, the federal agents had had a slight disagreement regarding why they should or should not stay in Yellow Barn. Now that he had had more time to think about it, Mulder found himself intrigued by the possibility of collecting information on the shared psychic phenomena he believed that the spontaneously gathered New Agers had experienced. It was fairly clear that the people had all felt _something_--otherwise, there was no reason for about a hundred unrelated people to all spontaneously migrate to the same sparsely populated town, a town that probably didn't even make it onto most state maps. However, Scully seemed inclined to believe that the mass congregation of New Agers was due less to cosmic "tuning-in" than it was to . . . well, something else. How was she supposed to know what? All they were really there to do, she reminded Mulder, was find Lowell. And get out again, preferably with the stray agent in tow.

And so -- despite the slight hostility of the people in the field towards the FBI -- Mulder and Scully were doing one last sweep to find out whether or not Agent Joseph Lowell had passed through this part of Yellow Barn. So far, Lowell was a no-show. And, oddly enough, most of the motel evacuees were still clinging to the belief that the "good vibrations" that had attracted them all to Yellow Barn not only meant them no harm, but were entirely unrelated to the unquestionably _bad_ vibrations that had caused their motel to disappear into the ground not twelve hours before.

"So, sir, have you seen this man as of late?" Mulder held up a picture of Lowell for an ancient overalls-clad man to see.

Puffing gently on a pipe, the geezer shook his head. "No, I thinks not . . . ah . . . maybe I does."

Mulder blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I _mighta_ done seen him," conceded the old man, gumming his pipe stem and sticking his hands into his pockets. "Looks real familiar."

The FBI agent looked at the picture. Unfortunately, he reflected, Lowell had one of those generic "man-in-a-crowd" faces that most people thought they could recognize. If anything, he resembled the generic composite picture that computerized criminal identification lineups started with. This made Lowell excellent for Bureau-related activities such as surveillance and undercover operations, but . . . working from the other end, it was definitely a different story. One or two people he'd questioned so far thought they might have seen Lowell on "America's Most Wanted," which Mulder sincerely hoped was not the truth.

He glanced around. Scully (decked out in cheap shorts and a tank top from the 24-hour convenience store) was discussing something with an unhappy-looking Billy Ackroyd, but didn't seem to need assistance. Mulder leaned closer to the old man in overalls. "Can you tell me more about why you're here?" he asked in hushed tones.

The old man's eyes brightened up, and his face split into a grin around the smoldering pipe. "Sure can. I was just gettin' off from work last Monday, tellin' my secretary to make sure she clean up that mess in the boardroom-"

"Wait a minute -- what's your occupation, Mr. . . .?"

"Gilroy. Mr. H.T. Gilroy. I'se an investment banker. Why?"

"Uh, no reason. Sorry."

"Well, anyhow, I was tellin' it to my secretary when all of a sudden, I _feels_ it! Right here!" Mr. H.T. Gilroy stabbed a gnarled finger towards the middle of his forehead. "And all'a sudden-like I knows that there's a place I gots to be and it ain't Miami."

"Miami."

"So I gets my lim-ou-sine and tells that driver of mine to head out 'til I tells him to not head out no more. And I feels that I'se in the right place when we gets to _here_." Mr. H.T. Gilroy stamped a crusted-over boot on the ground for emphasis. "Yaller Barn, Pennsylvania. And we stops at the first motel we finds -- which is, incident'ly, _the very source_ of them good vibes I'se feeling. My driver, he cleared out after a few days. Said he's goin' to hitchhike to Tallahassee, where he got kin and won't have to deal with me no more." The old man shrugged. "All the same to me. I knows how to drive myself, all right."

Mulder twisted his lips to the side, attempting to absorb all this information. "So . . . you felt something in your head . . . were you in distress at any time, or -- ?"

"No, it's like the feeling you gets when you realize you'se halfway to work and you done left the kettle on. Like you forgot you gotta be someplace and now you gotta get there as soon as you can." Gilroy nodded wisely. "And when I sleeps, I sees the Lines of Energy convergin' up ahead. Now that I'se here, the Lines, they all is One."

"That's . . . nice. Were you into this kind of thing before, or-"

"No, I was strictly Zoroastrian before now. Now . . . I guess . . . I just gotta find my own truth. It's gotta be out there somewheres." He shrugged, looking lost.

Mulder looked at Gilroy oddly. "I think I know what you mean."

"Anythin' else?"

"No, thanks. Thanks very much." Mulder took his leave of Mr. H.T. Gilroy, heading over to Scully.

"No, they were definitely military," Billy Ackroyd was claiming. "I saw them, too."

Scully threw Mulder a frustrated glance. "Mr. Ackroyd believes that the military has been engaging in covert operations around his property," she informed him. "And he hasn't seen Lowell," she added belatedly.

Mulder raised his eyebrows. "Military?"

Ackroyd nodded. "That accountant man saw 'em the other day, but I saw them last night on our way back here."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Ackroyd raised his chin. "I had already figured out that you people didn't want to hear what I had to say."

Scully's teeth were on edge. _For some reason, this man really pisses me off. I should really try to be more tolerant -- his livelihood just disappeared off the face of the earth, after all. _"And they were just . . . standing there?"

He nodded. "Watching us. It didn't really sink in until later. Charlotte -- my granddaughter--said she saw them a while ago, but this was the first time I saw them myself."

"What were they doing _then?_"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask her." Ackroyd shrugged irritably, just as his granddaughter materialized at his elbow.

"Did I hear my name?" she asked.

"Miss Ackroyd, is it true that you saw military personnel around your grandfather's motel?" asked Scully, managing to pull off an air of professionalism while wearing 15¢ flip-flops. Mulder began mentally flipping through reports of military activities, trying to figure out where the nearest military base was.

The girl blushed a little, glancing at Mulder. _He's so . . . intense._ "Um, yes. Last summer. In the woods."

"How did you know they were military?"

"I asked them," Charlotte said simply. "Well . . . I was just taking a walk, that is, and I ran into some people in uniforms. I was sort of surprised, to say the least . . . um, they asked me who I was and I told them. And I asked who they were, and they said, uh, they said that that was classified military information."

Mulder snorted, and even Scully looked faintly amused.

Charlotte's cheeks flushed again, and she continued her story in a rush. "So I said they were welcome to stop by the motel if they wanted, but the one in front said no. So I went away again. When I looked back -- well, they were still watching me, but . . . it's weird, but I thought that there might be one or two missing."

"Missing?" asked Scully in spite of herself.

"I thought that there were fewer of them there than before," Charlotte explained. "It was probably just a trick of the light or something, but it kind of stuck with me."

Mulder had that gleam in his eyes that Scully internally categorized as Slightly Dangerous. "Do you remember where you found them?"

AUTHOR'S ENDNOTES

There are three chapters to go after this, one of which has a chase scene. Just so you know you should definitely keep reading. :)

Actually, though, I'm really just grateful and thankful that you even got this far. It means a lot to me. Drop me a line if you wish.


	7. The Bushwhackers

(Good Vibrations -- Chapter Seven)

The Bushwhackers

10:45 A.M.

SOMEWHERE IN THE WOODS

YELLOW BARN, PENNSYLVANIA

Scully delicately spat out a small leaf that had somehow found its way into her mouth. "Are you sure she pointed over here?"

"I'm positive," came her partner's confident tone from near ground level. "Ow. Hold back this branch, would you?"

"How is this bush more suspicious than any of the other two hundred of them we've passed already?" Scully held back the offending branch, watching Mulder dig around in the dirt.

"It looked loose from a distance."

". . . Are you _sure_ she didn't point, say, _that_ way?"

"Yes." Mulder edged out from beneath said suspicious shrubbery. "What about _that_ bush? I think it looks loose." He pointed to one that stood a few feet away.

"That's not loose. That's just scrawny."

"In a way, they all are." Mulder started towards it, brushing dirt off his $1 t-shirt (courtesy of the same store that had supplied their camping equipment) and his old sweatpants, both of which were looking decidedly the worse for wear. "C'mon, Scully--if _you_ were engaged in secret military operations, where would _you_ hide?"

"Nowhere within fifty miles of Yellow Barn, Pennsylvania," asserted Scully, walking after him.

"Yes, because in your genius you have realized that there is no point to stealing cheap motels out from under people. But this could be the shadow government we're talking about here, Scully."

"And _they_ think that there's a point to stealing cheap motels out from under people?"

"Possibly, possibly. _That's_ why they put the 'I'-"

"- 'in FBI,' " Scully finished. "Yes, so you've said. Repeatedly."

Mulder grasped the Other Suspicious Bush and gave it a forceful tug. "It _is_ loose!" The bush popped out of the ground in one piece, showering dirt on his feet. "Ha!"

Scully looked dubiously at her underbrush-waving partner. "Yes. It was loose. Because it was dead."

"Right. Well, _one_ of these has to be the right one." Mulder dropped the offending shrubbery and surveyed the surrounding woods.

"Has it occurred to you," said Scully, "that maybe the mysterious disappearing military personnel -- if they were even military; _if_ any of them ever disappeared -- might have a better way of vanishing than pulling up loose plants and burrowing under them?"

"I just think it's a good idea to start with the basics." Mulder rapped on a tree to see if it were hollow, then sat down at its base. Scully followed suit.

"And I just think we're operating on hearsay here," she said, not unkindly. "Charlotte met those people about a year ago, had no positive identification for them, and wasn't even really sure that any of them disappeared behind her back to begin with." She spread her hands. "So, really, what do we actually _know?"_

Mulder shrugged. "Well, somebody was here. Whether or not they were really military, that's the name they were operating under. Don't you want to find out why?"

"Don't you want to find Lowell?"

He regarded her in surprise. "Scully, you said just yesterday that that was a wild goose chase."

She sighed. "I know. I still think it is. But I . . . well, if it comes down to either going on a wild goose chase that Skinner assigned us, or going on a wild goose chase prompted by questionable information . . . I think you know which one I'd prefer."

A moment passed, then Mulder spoke up again in a soft voice. "Scully, you saved about a hundred lives last night." He observed her slight shudder. "I'm not going to ask how you knew what to do," he continued, and saw her relax a little. "But the fact remains that if something as weird as what we saw happen last night could happen at all -- it's possible that these people could still be in danger, isn't it?"

She sighed. Let another moment pass. "Mulder. . . ."

"What do you say?"

"I say I've never heard of any fault lines around here. . . . And I say that that bush over there looks loose." A slight smile curved her lips.

Mulder squinted at said bush. "What do you know. . . ."

Sure enough, the bush -- which turned out to be made of plastic, and had a MADE IN CHINA imprint -- lifted away, taking a clean circle of dirt-covered concrete with it.

"Foxhole?" offered Scully with some irony.

He looked down into the dark depths, feeling decidedly dubious about the situation. "Got a flashlight?"

"Sadly, I do not."

Mulder cursed quietly under his breath and squatted down to inspect the exposed tunnel. "It's got a ladder built into the side."

"You first, or shall I?"

". . . I'll go." Hoping devoutly that nothing down there was about to grab his ankles, Mulder lowered himself down into the tunnel feetfirst. Scully watched with some anxiety as he clambered down the metal rungs.

"What's down there?" she called as the top of his head disappeared from view.

"I have no idea."

"Great." Scully hopped onto the ladder and began climbing down after him.

Predictably enough, it was pitch-black inside the hole. About ten feet down, Mulder hit bottom and jumped out of the way to make room for Scully. When her own feet touched down, the two directed their attentions to what little was visible in the dim light filtering through the hole above them.

"Light switch?" Mulder felt along a likely-looking bump on the wall and flicked it. A burst of brightness caused the partners to cover their eyes, and when their retinas adjusted, they saw that the light came from a row of lightbulbs strung along the top of what appeared to be an electrically outfitted mineshaft.

"You ever hear of any mining operations around here?"

"I think Billy would have mentioned it."

The partners started forwards across the gravel pathway under the mineshaft shorings. The passageway was wide enough to fit about three people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, and lengthwise -- well, it stretched off into the distance, and at that point appeared to fork into two separate shafts. Their footsteps echoed as they reached the intersection.

A few feet to the right was a steel door. Mulder tried the handle and found it locked.

A few feet to the left was a steel door. Scully tried the handle and found it locked.

"Well," said Mulder, stepping back to survey the situation. "That's interesting."

"Very." Scully ran her fingers over the digital keypad mounted below the left door's handle. "I wonder what happens if we enter the wrong combination?" she mused.

"Ever seen 'Indiana Jones'?"

"Hmm."

"Hey, Scully, how fast can you run?"

"What? Why?" Scully turned around to see Mulder bending over the keypad of the other door.

"Because I'm going to try out some combinations."

Scully stepped back warily, but no deathtraps appeared to have been sprung by Mulder's actions. "If only one of the Lone Gunmen were here," she murmured.

"Frohike would kill to hear you say that," remarked Mulder, then jumped back in horror as the keypad began to beep in his face. "Holy sh-"

And the door swung open.

Recovering admirably, Mulder held the door open for the astonished Scully.

"Mulder, what on earth did you just do?"

"Judicious experimentational application of statistical probability in random sequencing patterns. . . . I just hit random keys. After you-?"

". . . Thank you." _Indiana Jones he's not. _Bemused, Scully stepped through the doorway, still on the lookout for deathtraps. Following her, Mulder propped the door open slightly with a rock on the off-chance that getting back out again would require the still-unknown password.

Beyond the door was another hallway, though it would have been more at home in an office building than a subterranean hideaway -- except maybe for the floor, which was the same rough gravel as the mineshaft had been. They walked cautiously along, crunching the gravel under their cheaply-shod feet and peering into the occasional open doorway. Inside were normal-looking offices -- all completely deserted.

"Something tells me the military didn't dig a huge hole in the ground just to set up extra office space," stated Mulder, and Scully pointed towards the end of the hallway. There was another metal door -- this one, thankfully, without a keypad.

Or, as it turned out, any sort of lock. The agents cautiously edged through it, halfway expecting to run into a full army regiment, complete with functioning armored tank and anti-aircraft artillery. And then they found themselves in a laboratory -- a spotless one, all stainless steel and glass.

"Either this has never been used," said Scully as she examined a rack of test tubes, "or the occupants were extremely fastidious about cleaning up after themselves." She ran her finger along a lab table. "Mulder, what on earth do you think they were testing in here?" Scully turned around and saw her partner wandering along rows of lab tables and glass cases, a look of open wonder all over his face.

"This is amazing!"

"Yes, but . . . where did they all go, and why?" Scully asked, perplexed. "The existence of this place does nothing to explain a freak earthquake, either. This isn't seismological equipment."

Mulder opened a cabinet. It held empty beakers and thin plastic tubing. "Scully, did you notice how the tops were charred off a lot of the trees in the woods?"

"No, I didn't," she responded. "Mulder, if you're going to bring up alien crash sites again. . . ."

"Then I don't need to repeat myself, do I?" Mulder shut the cabinet and turned around to face her, euphoric smile lighting up his face. "Maybe it's Area 51 all over again, Scully, maybe it's another Roswell. Say that a, a _something_ crashes here-"

"Mulder-"

"-and somehow nobody notices except the military, and there's no way they can move the, uh, remains all the way across the country, so they bury them where nobody's going to notice. And so that gives them time to look at the remains more carefully, right?"

"I thought you said you didn't remember hearing about UFO reports in this area," said Scully carefully, sticking to the all-too-familiar subject although thrown slightly off-balance by the excited shine in his eyes.

He shrugged expansively. "So nobody was looking up in the sky that night except the Air Force. _I_ don't know."

"And so you think the military went to all the trouble of building an underground base around a crash site?"

"Stranger things have happened."

She shook her head. "But it's deserted here. And what about the earthquake?"

Mulder held up a cautionary finger. "Not an earthquake. I'm guessing that somebody moved something a little too quickly down here, which did not do good things to the supports holding up the ground over the crash site remains."

Scully's mind was whirring. "Supposing there really was something big down in here -- the motel fell down here, too . . . there has to have been room somewhere underground for the motel to fit. And the ground closed up again perfectly, as if it had never opened to begin with. How could that happen?"

"Let's find out."

"Well, as long as we're down here . . . and nobody seems to be telling us to leave. . . ."

"But isn't it more interesting when they tell us to leave?"

"Maybe if your idea of 'interesting' involves being chased at gunpoint and then suspended from active duty without pay."

"That's interesting, too, in a way."

The two started through the maze of lab stations towards the opposite side of the room, where yet another door stood. Upon reaching it, Scully pushed it open, and the partners stepped through the doorway.

There was a wide, high-ceilinged room on the other side -- it could have been an aircraft hangar. Except that there was no aircraft sitting in the echoing expanse. . . .

. . . just a slightly squashed, but otherwise intact, pink building. Billy's Shangri-La #2.

The agents looked at one another. Then they looked up. Sure enough, there was a crack in the concrete ceiling. They looked to the right. On the far wall in the direction of where the aboveground highway probably stood was an enormous scorch mark, with a blasted-out area behind it. Something appeared to have exited the hangar-like chamber with incautious haste. Underground. _Through_ a wall, and then through who knew how much solid ground.

"Maybe somebody mistook the gas for the brake," Mulder eventually said, breaking the reverential silence that had fallen.

Scully shook her head slowly. "Mulder . . . don't you hear that . . . ?"

"What?" He cocked his head to listen.

Yes, there did seem to be some kind of noise in the distance. Almost like. . . .

"Someone's coming," said Scully tensely, quietly; "a lot of someones."

"Either that, or another earthquake," said Mulder, and with that gut-sinking revelation they both spun around at the same time, ripping open the door behind them and taking off back through the laboratory. Colliding a few times with various bits of laboratory furniture, the agents made it to the next doorway in time to see vibrating bits of gravel begin skittering into the lab from the hangar. They wrenched the next door open, running with a controlled, silent terror through the deserted office hallway as the noise around them increased to a dull roar.

Mulder hit the last propped-open door with his full body weight, and Scully shot past him. They took the next turn at too high a speed, coughing on the edges of the dust cloud that had followed them from the hangar; both partners overbalanced and crashed to the shaking ground. Scully rebounded first, pulling Mulder back up by his waist, and they took off down the final stretch of mineshaft at full tilt.

_Is it just my imagination, or is it getting louder in here? And a lot harder to breathe -- ?_

In front of them, a lightbulb wobbled and dropped like an overripe pear from its perch on the shoring and shattered on the gravel. The agents dodged it -- Scully swerving around the obstacle, Mulder opting to leap straight over it-- and heard the crystalline sounds of a series of bulbs further behind them detach and break into shards. Some bulbs shattered even before hitting the ground, splintering in the middle of the rapidly approaching cloud of thick air and stone.

And then they found themselves swarming up the ladder, and at some point Scully tripped and wound up in Mulder's arms, but that was all right because now they were out, they were _out_, they were free in the air-

and they were running again because the ground wouldn't hold still; dodging the falling trees and detachable bushes, and civilization was somewhere this way-

"Ah!" Mulder skidded to avoid running into the path of a toppling fir tree. Scully plowed into his back at a dead run, and they both stumbled into a tangled heap onto the ground, nearly blacking out from hyperventilation.

At some point, the noise stopped. Some time after that, Mulder realized that he might be crushing Scully, and rolled himself off of her warm crumpled body.

"Scully -- ?"

"Uhmmm." She dragged herself up onto her elbows, staring at him through confused blue eyes. She blinked, managing to focus on his face. "We got out?"

He managed one weak nod in affirmation. "We got out."

"Oh, good," she wheezed, and flopped over onto her back. Mulder followed suit, and they lay there like that on the ground for a while. Staring up at the bright sky and the trees that remained to frame it.

"They are, too, burnt," Mulder said eventually, once he'd gotten his breath back.

"Really?" Scully squinted dreamily up at the heavens. A few more minutes elapsed. "Mulder. . . ."

"Scully?"

"Never take me into the woods again. . . ."

"_Not_ a problem."

"Can we leave now?"

"I hope so . . ." Mulder sat partway up, gingerly feeling his battered ribs. "Anything broken?"

"From our escaping being buried alive, or from your landing on me like a sack of boulders? I don't know." Scully experimentally tested her joints. "I don't think so."

With a groan, Mulder hoisted himself up onto his knees, using the fallen fir as leverage. He stood on mildly shaky legs. _Sack of boulders, huh?_ His clothes were definitely in bad condition, and somewhere along the way they had both lost their sandals. _Ran straight out of them, probably,_ thought Mulder as Scully hauled herself upright.

"Let's not do this ever again," she proposed.

"Which part? Getting stuck in a collapsing tunnel, or uncovering military secrets?"

"I'm willing to take a hiatus from both if you get me out of here."

"Will do."

A brief silence.

"I take it that landing on you like a sack of boulders is still up for an encore?"

"Don't push your luck, or I'll make _sure_ you break something next time."

"Is that a promise?"

And so the bruised partners limped their way towards civilization, leaning on one another for support.


	8. FBI Go Home

(Good Vibrations -- Chapter Eight)

FBI Go Home

11:26 A.M.

YELLOW BARN, PENNSYLVANIA

Guilt does odd things to people. For example, when the second earthquake hit, a number of people believed themselves responsible for Mulder and Scully's heading into its epicenter, and acted bizarrely as a result.

Billy Ackroyd, for example, started having second thoughts about blaming them for the loss of his motel. If they really were affiliated with the military, he thought, they wouldn't really have questioned him and his granddaughter about those strangers' activities in the woods. Right? So . . . maybe he shouldn't have stuck them with the bill. No, surely that belonged to the person who was ultimately in charge of the military. At this point along his line of thought, Ackroyd became confused as to whether this would mean he'd have to mail an invoice to the President, to Congress, or to both, and he got a headache.

As soon as the second earthquake sent the remaining evacuees running for the hills, Charlotte Ackroyd realized that there was a decent chance that the FBI agents -- including Agent Intense . . . well, _especially_ Agent Intense, actually -- were in serious trouble as a result. Hadn't they been heading into the wilderness in search of shady military personnel at _her_ behest? Believing herself guilty of manslaughter, Charlotte promptly burst into tears, further complicating her grandfather's headache.

As for Special Agent Joe Lowell . . . well, he seriously regretted not stepping forward when the agents had first started asking around about his whereabouts. After all, if they'd known where he was -- right in front of them, hiding behind a fake face -- they might never have gotten sidetracked and wandered into the woods. So he ripped off the makeup he'd appropriated from the FBI, stood on a rock, and shouted out the story of his true identity and culpability to all and sundry who would listen.

Needless to say, this really did not help Mr. Ackroyd's developing migraine. And it _really_ surprised Mulder and Scully, who in the meantime had dragged themselves back into the clearing without anybody really noticing.

"Thank you," said Mulder politely as Lowell's shouted confession wound down to a close.

"What!" Lowell spun around, nearly toppling off the rock he was perched upon, staring at his disheveled fellow agents in shock.

Scully was reminded of a certain scene in "Macbeth" -- the one in which the ghost of a man the title character's murdered shows up for dinner. "I don't suppose you'd care to come with us?" she suggested.

Lowell stared. Charlotte's sobs cut off abruptly, and she clutched her grandfather's arm for support. The elder Ackroyd looked up and gave a violent start of surprise.

The New Agers looked up to see what all the fuss was about. Upon discovering that the federal agents were not quite as dead as was previously believed, they went back to mildly resenting them.

"I -- you're alive!" Lowell flung his arms around the bedraggled Mulder and Scully. He couldn't really reach, but that was okay because it's the thought that counts. The partners carefully but firmly pushed Lowell back away again, though not without some degree of gentleness.

"We noticed," said Mulder flatly. "Care to explain what you're doing here?"

Lowell's shoulders sagged. "I'm . . . sorry," he said, sounding defeated.

"Save it for the review board," advised Scully with an air of finality.

"No! -- no, I can't go back -- " Lowell turned away, then faced the other agents again. He then proceeded to spill the rest of his backstory.

It was an interesting one, though, as backstories go. Lowell had recently gone through a profound disillusionment with his life. He and his wife had been separated for a number of years, though they'd never bothered to finalize the divorce papers. But suddenly Lowell was feeling as though the mistakes he'd made should be corrected, and he decided to strike out on a new life with his old love. So he ditched the FBI one day, accidentally dropping a hint to one colleague that he was going to visit his old honeymoon location -- Yellow Barn, Pennsylvania.

After a few miles down the road in her estranged husband's company, Mrs. Lowell found herself strongly reminded of why she'd left him to begin with. At which point she proceeded to leave him again.

Lowell had doggedly continued to Yellow Barn on his own, convinced that there was still an answer there for him. So determined was he to abandon his old life that he went through some trouble to avoid Mulder and Scully when they appeared. Although he'd actually run into Scully on the agents' first night there, he passed himself off as a drunk mystic who did not understand the English language, and she had avoided him after that. (Upon hearing this, Scully's face noticeably shifted into an even more ominous expression than before.)

"So, you're not coming back?" asked Mulder, sort of hoping that that would be the case. _I don't want to bump into this guy at the water cooler next week and have to pretend he didn't almost get us killed twice out here_.

The moody Lowell stared off into the woods. "I . . . can't go back."

_You got that right,_ thought Scully, feeling vaguely murderous.

"I . . . know that this isn't the way to live, either," continued the runaway, looking miserable. "This is no real life . . . hiding out like a felon. . . ."

Mulder clapped him on the shoulder a little more roughly than could have been comfortable. "Well, how about you send in a letter of resignation sometime," he said in a tone that did not leave much room for argument.

"Yes . . . yes, I should do that. . . ." Lowell wandered away, shaking his head and murmuring dejectedly to himself.

The agents stared after their former co-worker for a moment. Then Scully let out a long breath of air, and the partners started back towards their tent.

At some point as they packed their things (including the sleeping bags . . . there was no use in leaving them behind) into the sedan, the Ackroyds appeared behind the agents, shuffling their feet and clearing their throats.

Scully slammed one of the sedan's back doors and turned around to face them. "Yes?"

Charlotte looked at the ground. "I -- I'm sorry you had such a bad time here," she said in a small voice, and Scully's heart softened towards the girl. A little bit.

"Yeah, and you left this behind," said Billy Ackroyd, handing Mulder a shoebox that bulged with familiar-looking papers: All the motel evacuees' receipts from the 24-hour store, including one for a wireless radio. And one that Billy had drawn up himself. For a motel.

Mulder looked down blankly at this offering for a moment before taking it in his hands. "And you're giving me this because . . .?"

Ackroyd shrugged. "Government had something to do with my motel disappearing, I know. Government's gonna pay for it, one way or another."

Mulder treated him to a stare _à la_ liquid nitrogen.

The man coughed into one hand. "Well. If it ain't your fault, I'm sure you can find out whose it _was_, and . . . well. Yeah. C'mon, Charlotte, honey. Let's go." He took his granddaughter by the shoulder and propelled her back towards the field. The younger, prettier, Ackroyd turned back once to cast a last longing glance at Mulder, but then returned her resigned gaze to the field full of unwanted guests.

Mulder and Scully stared after them. Then they looked at the shoebox. Ever the gentleman, Mulder offered it to Scully.

"No, thanks." Instead of accepting the gift, Scully reopened the sedan's back door for him. Sighing, Mulder gently deposited the shoebox in the backseat. Closing the back door again, the partners brushed as much dirt and debris off themselves as they could, then climbed into the car.

At some point down the road to D.C., Scully's hand moved towards the car radio tuner and turned the knob. And froze as some familiar chords rang out of the car speakers. The artist? The Beach Boys. The song? . . .

" 'Good Vibrations,' " said the horrified Special Agents in unison, and both moved to switch off the radio.

Seven miles later, one of them ventured to tentatively switch it back on. This time, the unmistakable sound of the Ramones blared out. "Something to Believe In." The radio stayed on that frequency for a while longer, lasting all the way through "Rocket to Russia" and even "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." At which point the signal faded out of range, and static hissed out of the speakers. The radio was summarily turned off again.

A few minutes later, another voice broke the silence in the sedan. It was not a professional voice, and was far from perfect in the classical sense. Which did nothing to stop it from segueing into a spirited Judy Garland impersonation, and actually made it more endearing somehow, in its own way.

As the car flew along the unrolling road, outbreaks of falsetto and laughter trailed behind it, along with the occasional duet. All the way back home.

AUTHOR'S ENDNOTES

This is not _quite_ the end -- there's an epilogue, too. Go on to Chapter 9.


	9. Epilogue

GOOD VIBRATIONS

EPILOGUE / CHAPTER 9

. . . None of which the interns in Accounting were to know, of course, poor fools.

But, anyhow, what happened to everyone during the bureaucratic limbo of Mulder and Scully's horrific expense report?

Well, Billy Ackroyd was pissed off enough at the world in general to write a full-length book lambasting every facet of the government. It went on to reach #3 on the New York Times' Bestseller List, where it stayed for a number of weeks. Although Ackroyd earned enough to build several more – better -- motels, he chose not to; instead, he pursued a moderately successful writing career. He is now a wealthy anarchist.

The starry-eyed Charlotte Ackroyd, through a series of unlikely events which I will not bother to relate, was Discovered and became a star of the stage. Singing, of course. Her first hit song was titled "In Your Eyes (I See Intensity)." Upon her becoming a millionaire, any number of intense-eyed young men began to seek her out, although -- no worries -- not one of them answered to the name of Mulder. Charlotte didn't mind too much. Life was good. Still is.

The visiting New Agers were unhappy when the good vibrations dissipated a few days after the second earthquake, but were thankful that they had had the chance to Join into Cosmic Oneness. Exchanging addresses and phone numbers, they went their separate ways; every so often, they have a reunion.

And Joe Lowell? Eventually, he got over his identity crisis. Now he works quite contendedly in a national fast food outlet as an Assistant Manager of Frying Things. One of his subordinates is a man who bears a startling resemblance to Elvis Presley.

The subterranean army research facility, as you might have guessed, collapsed into one big sinkhole. Unless you have a backhoe and a whole lot of spare time, no evidence remains of its ever having been there.

The interns from Chapter 1 decided to pass on to their superiors only what they felt were the "safe" parts of the Expense Report From Hell. In other words, Mulder and Scully were reimbursed six months after the fact for two pairs of sleeping bags, some bedsheets, and two pairs of flip-flops. This confused the heck out of them when they got the reimbursement checks, since they had pretty much forgotten about that particular wild goose chas. When your job description can be summarized as "glorified ghostbuster," you don't tend to have a lot of leisure time in which you can review your less pertinent cases. Some things are best forgotten, anyway.

As for our Dynamic Duo's place in the epilogue aside from their financial relationship with the Bureau -- well, we all know that they live on.

AUTHOR'S ENDNOTES

I had a heck of a good time writing this (whereas, by the end of "Primal Fear," I was fused into a twitching, paranoid lump . . . though that was, admittedly, sort of fun in its own wouldn't-wanna-do-it-again kind of way), and am unimaginably grateful for your having read this far. Hopefully you also enjoyed reading it. :)

Also: Thank you _so_ much, those of you who reviewed. Even though I prefer to finish stories before beginning to post them, which is why there are huge time gaps between each series' first appearance, I do make changes to unposted chapters when given advice. (So you can hold Blue Twilight responsible for the UST in Chapter Seven.)

And: I realized after posting Chapters One through Three that I probably should not have named Mr. Ackroyd "Billy." There are way too many people (characters and cast alike) on the X-Files who are called by some variation on a theme of William as it is, so I probably should have named him something else. Well, you live and you learn.


End file.
